Blog NBE-E4210

This week we didn’t have any quiz but instead a Q&A session. I decided to write about one last topic that I found interesting, as mentioned by Professor Matias Palva. It was regarding work done in his lab currently – regarding brain plasticity and ways to rewire the brain via games.

The concept of brain plasticity is fascinating because of how (potentially) effective it can be. The brain adjusts itself based on its surroundings, so with the right surroundings we can help the brain rewire positive things. Such as, depression or motor issues. This is of course intuitive and already done by humans all around the world – without knowing neuroscience.

The game was another cool way to apply help for depression. With as little as 20 hours of gametime, reduced signs of depression had already been reported. Hopefully this work bears fruit.

Thanks for the course!

Maximilian

I also find it interesting, how the brain has the ability to change through different methods.  Regarding mental illnesses, for many years, mental illnesses have been treated with medications that shut down some functions of the brain temporarily. I think this does not solve the problem. It was mentioned that psychotherapy could have an effect that changes the brain so that mental illness would be gone. Instead of shutting down some functions, the brain could heal itself by rewiring connections. This would take a long time but when considering that plasticity of the brain would remain until 20 years, young peoples mental illnesses could be treated more with the rewiring method than shutting down and hoping that connections of that illness would die.

For my part, I also want to thank for this course!

-Samuel

Posted by Jacob Rehn

This week, our topic was the study of how our movements are done and controlled by our brain.

Samuel

I would think that this topic is the last thing to cover to give an overview of the brain. It was really interesting to know those different areas of our brain control different movements(simple and complex) and that our movements follow the idea ”ready, set, go”.

What made me wonder was the experiment of Rizzolatti about the mirror cells. Mirrors cells are activated when a person sees a movement that is similar to his. Does it mean that mirror cells have some kinds of connections to the part of the brain where the memory of those movements are held or are these mirrors cells the memory itself?

Posted by Samuel Girmay

This weeks topic was mental illnesses. The lecture and book focused on the anxiety, affective and schizophrenia disorders.  Our weeks started again with a opening lecture, followed by an quiz of the topic.

Samuel

I would think that mental disorders and really close to the life of Finnish people. Almost everyone, I know, knows a person with mental disorders of some kind. That is why this topic was really interesting to me to understand and study.

Anxiety disorder is a really interesting disorder. I was not considered as a mental illness 100 years ago but now we can find it almost every society in the world. what made me interested is the proposed system of how the anxiety works and how are systems is activated more on the more developed societies. It is said that the overexpression and continuous activation HPA system causes anxiety. It is also noted that people with more choices compare to people with less choice have more anxiety problems. Is this due to the multiple choices that people can make? When a lot of choices a given or people have freedom and ability to do anything, does it overload the brain, which could cause inappropriate activation of the HPA system? I would not even consider that dictatorship is the cure for anxiety but I’m just wondering…

Maximilian

The numbers we learned about mental disorders as a cost to society were astonishing. That the cost is so high really shows what an important problem it is to solve. Perhaps the most essential problem, since, our subjective experience is the one that really matters at the end of the day. For everyone, no matter what you do – the experience that is in the end produced by the nervous system is final.

I found the aspect of treating mental disorders with medications fascinating. I think about it in the following way:

You can do two things to change your brain. Either do lifestyle changes (i.e. exercise more, eat better and sleep well) or you can eat some medication. For example, antidepressants that stimulate serotonin receptors or dopamine receptors in some way could end up causing similar effects? Because lifestyle changes essentially cause neurochemical changes in the brain that we should be able to mimic with the right medication.

However, this is not the case currently. It seems to be very hard to find the right medication because the brain system is a complex one. Additionally, we are all wired slightly differently depending on our experiences and heritage – making it more difficult. Mental illness is perhaps the most intriguing and important problem that faces neuroscience today, in my humble opinion.

Posted by Samuel Girmay

This week’s topic is the wiring of the brain, how neurons develop and how they know where to form extend their axons.

Samuel Girmay

This topic intrigued me. From our studies, we have learned that certain transcription factors dictate what the cell will become. These transcription factors are affected by certain extracellular as well as intercellular factors. It was interesting to know that neurons act the same way.

Also, what fascinated me was the formation of synapses. From my previous studies and what I have learned when watching a different nature documentary, simpler life forms such as amebas or molds act the similar way when contacting the target of interest. Would it be possible that neurons could have higher understanding compared to regular cells? If it’s able to subtract and extract its axon just by depending on its obstacle that it has been contacted.  Also, I was thinking that would it be possible to mimic the reaction of the postsynaptic cell and see whether the synapse will form?

The chapter discusses the neurons that are formed in the brain, what about the other parts of the body? and which is the neuron in the leg formed, from the spinal cord or to the spinal cord?

Posted by Samuel Girmay

This week’s topic was the Auditory System. As usual, the week started with a lecture followed by a quiz.

Samuel

I had some technical issues regarding my account so I did my quiz through email. The quiz was not so hard as I thought it would have been. Still, the quiz did not go so well as I thought it would have.

The topic was quite interesting. In my previous studies and what I have self-study also, I have gotten quite familiar with the structure of the auditory system. The basic information got me still because I never thought that what actually how the wave travels in our ears and how it is modified in order us to observe it. Would that mean that there would a possibility to detect any sound that is observable and we could then select certain ones only? How I have understood, we are able to observe only a certain Herzs and for that range, we select certain noises.

Another thing that wonders me is the hallucination of hearing. When people think they heard something but actually are not, what actually happens in the brain? I would guess that there is some miss firing in the hearing pathway that causes it but how exactly.

Next week, our topic will be the wiring of the brain.

Posted by Jacob Rehn

This week’s topic was the chemical control of the brain and behaviour. As usual, the week started with a lecture followed by a quiz.

Samuel

This week’s topic was a nice follow-up of neurotransmitters week. The quiz itself was much harder than thought to be. I was still able to answer the questions.

It was really interesting to learn how a little organ in our brain can affect so much. Hypothalamus. The homeostasis topic is quite familiar to me. It is an important part when developing drugs and gene technology. Homeostasis act as customs when testing a drug. It will check if the drug does not interfere so much the body and if it does, it will try to balance the body back to its normal status.

The new thing that I learned, was the different areas of the hypothalamus and how they function. I did not know that thirst of water came from the anterior lobe of the pituitary and so-called ”love” comes from the posterior lobe of the pituitary.

Next week will be the exam week, therefore there will no lectures or quiz. I will focus on the exams and at the end of the week I will study for the next topic which will be the auditory system.

Maximilian

The systems of neurotransmitters were the most interesting subject of the course so far. probably because they are topics you hear about outside of neuroscience because of mainstream spread – dopamine and serotonin thus instantly caught my attention.

How all the systems are connected and how much they affect each other was new for me. For example, serotonin receptors modulate the release of other transmitters ranging from GABA to oxycontin.

Basically it is fascinating how a system like serotonin plays a huge role in behavior – controlling cognition, mood, sleep and anxiety to name a few. The combination of chemicals and how they affect us and each other is interesting.

For me the learning process is much easier when the topics covered are something I have head about before – such as dopamine or serotonin in this case. It makes it better when there is some base from which to explore totally new topics, which made this week especially entertaining.

Posted by Samuel Girmay

This week, our topic was neurotransmitters and how different chemicals can mimic these transmitters. As usual our weeks started with a lecture and quiz. On Tuesday we had a exercise 3 were the topic was about the vision and senses.

Samuel

This week’s topic was interesting. Neurotransmitters are the key factors to determine what kind of functions does a neuron have. In my studies, we study how these neurotransmitters are produced and what compounds could mimic them. From my previous studies, I have learned that some psychedelic drugs have the ability to mimic these neurotransmitters and inhibit their normal functions. This abnormal functioning of the neuron are considered to be main reason to have hallucinations when using these drug recreation use. It was also interesting to know, what compounds are considered as a neurotransmitters. Would there be a possibility that we could produce synthetic neurotransmitters by following the rules then?

Quiz was really easy but I would think that the reason might be that I had more time to read for the quiz and the context was much easier to understand.

I think, it was weird that we had a exercise that was related last week. But it was a good reminder of the last topics and gave a better understanding of senses.

Maximilian

The complexity of the brain is increasing as the course progresses. Neurotransmitters are a new layer of complexity to inhibit or excite neurons. This chemical layer of neurotransmitters can cause cascades, have fast and slow long term changes both divergent and convergent.

Additionally, the part about how chemical compounds can mimic our natural neurotransmitters is interesting for obvious reasons since we humans partake in them so much. Overall, the delicacy of this system is amazing because how well it work while being fragile – like how deriving the brain of blood flow (oxygen) for just a few minutes already causes neurons to die.

I think this chapter humbled me further in how much there is to understand about the workings of the brain. It is not only a complex network of electrical synapses – there seems to be equally complex network of chemical causes and effects that are continually at work.

Posted by Samuel Girmay

This week our topic was senses. Especially visual, smell and taste senses. We begin our week with a Monday lecture, followed by a quiz.

Samuel

Senses rely largely on the membrane proteins’ ability to react to external stimulus. Activation of the receptor membrane proteins and their signalling pathways are an important part of cell biology and understanding how cell work.  As a Life Science students, it is important to know how these pathways are formed and human senses are an excellent example of these. That is why the topic to me was really relevant and important to know.

The quiz itself was too hard. It was really hard and annoying to list two things, using only 10 words or less. I can understand that you can understand better but I see no point to used it on that question.

Posted by Samuel Girmay

This week, our topic was how information from neuron to neuron is transmitted. As a pre-assignment, we needed to read chapters 3,4,5 and our knowledge was tested with a quiz.

Samuel

In my opinion, the topic was quite basic but important to know. The ability of a neuron to create action potential and cooperation between other cells makes this structure of cells quite unique. The interesting and related to my studies was that how many different medicines affect the synaptic transmission between cells. Different drugs can inhibit or excite the synaptic transmission which could lead to different responses. The ability of a drug to surpass the blood-brain barrier into synaptic clef could be quite hard and could cause a lot side effects.

Maximilian

How the action potential is created and how neurons are connected was quite new for me. I am fascinated by the likeness to computers 1 and 0 the neurons have. However, neurons are much more dynamic and this threshold that is needed for them to be activated is much different than computers. They can be on the edge of spiking and connect in more complex ways. As opposed to a computer that is always 1 or 0 – there is no range until a threshold is reached.

Also, I learned a lot about chemical synapses  – in essence that yes neurotransmitters affect neurons but in the end they only affect the probability that a certain neuron will have a action potential or not (inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmitters). They are chemical but affect the same base electric communication that neurons uses.

Finally the network of the brain is amazing. I wonder how hard it is to create new or remove old synapses by changing thought and life patterns?

Posted by Samuel Girmay

This week, we had our first quiz. The idea of the quiz is to get an idea/preview of the week’s topic. This week, it was neurons, glia and neuronal membrane at rest. I was not able to participate in the quiz and Monday’s lecture which was unfortunate.

I was very familiar with today’s topic. As a student, who has studied different cells types and how they function, I consider neurone and glia cells quite unique. Neurons give information and form memories, thinking and action while glia cells support them. It seems like these cells are dependent on each other since, without the other one, the brain would not function the same way.

Posted by Samuel Girmay